It's time to check back in after a hiatus of several weeks. After losing two friends in quick succession, life became rather hectic when we launched our first Saturday evening service for the Journey Church Bailey Campus. We held our second service last night, and though our learning curve is rather steep we're all excited about what lies ahead. Daphne, Gwyn and I are still the only full-time staff for the Bailey campus. We need God to raise up a worship leader and a youth pastor soon, as most of our volunteers are my age or older (ie, wise, mature, and "seasoned"). We are passionate to reach the youth in Bailey, but we need an influx of young blood. God knows.
After almost four weeks of waiting and (unsuccessfully, in my case) learning to be patient, we are about to get the permit to rebuild the floor in the country store. God has provided much of the lumber and materials we'll need to build it - which is in itself ironic; the donations only came a week ago, so even if we'd had the permit to build we would not have been able to do the work. The Lord knew all this, and while every impatient bone in my body has popped out of joint over the past 30 days, He was working behind the scenes to provide what we need.
After preaching the past two Saturdays I am gaining a new appreciation for the challenge that Michael faces every single week to come up with a new sermon from a fresh perspective. I find it very difficult to set aside even a few focused hours to think, pray and write... and I have only a fraction of the responsibilities that he does. I can only imagine how much harder this will be once we start working on the remodel of the store! I'm already A.D.D on my best days, so throw in a very enticing and long-awaited building project and ... yikes. I still have one gainormous problem: I depended completely on Mark's know-how and passion for this project, and now he's gone. The Lord must have someone else waiting in the wings to fill Mark's very big shoes. I wonder who it is?
